


A Perfect Fit

by ExhaustedCommonSense



Category: Torchwood
Genre: F/M, Ianto is non-binary, M/M, Non-binary character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-14 21:59:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16049411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExhaustedCommonSense/pseuds/ExhaustedCommonSense
Summary: Inspired by these posts:1&2





	A Perfect Fit

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by these posts: [1](http://jacksgreatcoat.tumblr.com/post/178267898850/only-now-just-noticed-in-cyberwoman-that-lisas) & [2](https://javicpiotrthane.tumblr.com/post/176706674648/hot-take-of-the-day-ianto-is-nb)

When Ianto is little, he asks his parents why he doesn’t wear the clothes Rhi no longer needs. His parents are constantly complaining about needing to buy him more clothes, and the clothes they buy are all secondhand anyway, so he doesn’t see the problem.

His father gets angry and his mother gets concerned. Ianto doesn’t ask again.

(He still steals a few t-shirts out of the pile destined to some cousin and hides them away in his draws. No one ever notices when he wears them under jumpers but the knowledge of them makes him smile).

 

- 

 

He wears a suit when he joins Torchwood.

The material fits him better than anything he’s worn before and he feels more comfortable than he thinks is normal.

He knows people complain about suits being restrictive and suffocating. Personally, he finds them the least suffocating thing he’s worn.

 

-

 

Lisa is everything he never dared to dream of.

She’s quick, funny, and adventurous in ways he isn’t and she fits into his life like he was just waiting for her. She fits into his flat just as easily.

Soon enough, Ianto is brushing aside various make-up containers to shave on a morning and browsing through both male and female shirts to match his suits.

It makes him feel right in a way he can’t explain.

 

-

 

In winter, Lisa teases him about wearing her scarf. She jokes that he must have been in a hurry to have picked up the wrong one. 

He doesn’t mention that it matches his tie. 

He doesn’t do it again. 

 

-

 

For Lisa he abondons his suits to get a new job. 

He thinks maybe Captain Harkness knew he wasn’t comfortable in his other clothes. Maybe it wasn’t the suit but his confidence in it that drew him in. 

He’s given up more for Lisa and he would have given up them too, but he’s relieved he doesn’t have to.

 

-

 

Lisa suffers in a way that shouldn’t be familiar to him. 

It’s not the pain that’s the worst, it’s feeling like she’s losing herself.

He does what he can to help. He cleans her, feeds her, talks to her, anything to remind her of her own humanity. 

In the end, it’s the littlest things that make the biggest impact. He brings her make-up bag from the home she hasn’t seen and sets to work.

The first attempts are terrible, but it makes her laugh in a way that he aches to hear. 

He spends ages perfecting it, watching video after video and practicing on himself to get it right.

(He doesn’t think of how right it feels. He doesn’t think of how heavy and empty it feels when he washes it off. He’s doing this for Lisa. Nothing more). 

 

-

 

And then she’s gone. 

He can’t bring himself to throw away her things. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t begin to separate their belongings. It had always been a running joke that their tastes were so similar.

After another painful morning shifting through their wardrobe he boxes up her clothes and gives them away.

(He keeps her scarves).

 

-

 

It’s sometimes hard to be around Jack, but Tosh is an unexpected lifeline. 

She needs a friend as much as he does. 

It feels easy and right to sit on her floor watching stupid films while he does her nails. She doesn’t care that he learnt it for Lisa. She doesn’t tease him when he does his own. 

(She also doesn’t mention it when his nails are scrubbed clean the next day, all evidence of colour removed).

 

-

 

Mary is a revelation for more than just Tosh.

The aftermath causes them both to stand back and look at their lives in a new light. 

Always one to find comfort in labels, Tosh ropes him in to endless research until she’s satisfied. Ianto goes home that night as a newly labelled bisexual. But he also knows he’s in good company there.

(He doesn’t tell Tosh that he continues the research at home, drawn to the community that has names for things he didn’t dare speak).

 

-

 

Ianto was never one to care too much about labels, but there was a certain comfort to be found in having a name for something.

Non-binary.

It felt like a revelation and a well known fact all in one. 

 

-

 

They stick to subtle things and keep it quiet.

Female shirts find their way back into their wardrobe. Nobody notices a difference under their jacket, but like the t-shirts from long ago, they make the world feel a little lighter. 

Make-up that had been shut away in grief migrates back to in front of the mirror. They don’t wear it out of the house, but it still feels like a victory.

 

-

 

Jack is both similar and different to Lisa. He fits into their life like he always belonged there, but where Lisa accepted her place, Jack twists and fights for more, pushing further in until Ianto feels like they’re connected in a way they’ve never felt before.

It would have been easy to let him assume he wasn’t the only one in their life. 

The clothes and make-up are accepted as a stranger in their flat. The expectation that Jack is not the only one to share their bed (their heart?). 

It’s strangely simple to reveal the truth. They breathe out their secrets and breathe in the acceptance they never knew they’d been hoping for.

 

-

 

The first time they wear make-up outside the flat, it’s only a little bit of eyeliner.

The next time it’s painted nails and they share a smile with Tosh who matches them in colour.

 

-

 

They never really come out, but it doesn’t feel like hiding. 

Sat at their sisters table and remembering all those hidden away t-shirts, they don’t feel the need to reveal more of themselves. They don’t have to explain themselves.

They know exactly where they fit. 

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: [@exhaustedcommonsense](https://exhaustedcommonsense.tumblr.com)


End file.
